New Horizons? Allegiant Gets Some Different Airplanes...

Airline news has been kind of slow lately, but something popped up yesterday that's definitely worth a mention...

Our friends at Allegiant are getting some new airplanes — not brand new, but new to the Allegiant fleet. Allegiant is our low cost carrier that provides our service to Los Angeles, Phoenix/Mesa, Las Vegas, Orlando, and Tampa/St. Pete. For years the airline has flown only one kind of airplane: McDonnell Douglas MD-80s. In the past couple of years the airline latched on to several Boeing 757s. They're mostly used on Allegiant's routes to Hawaii.

Springfield, Mo sits nearly smack-dab in the middle of the country. That makes it a very long haul from here to the West Coast, or to the upper East Coast. Keep this thought in mind as you read on...

Allegiant currently flies from here to Los Angeles using an MD-80. That's about 1400 miles. That's a long stretch for an MD-80 and close to the end of its range. The point I'm making here is that 1400 miles is about as far as Allegiant is going to fly from Springfield using an MD-80. So what happens when A319s get thrown into the fleet mix? It means that Allegiant has a lot more flexibility when it comes to how far it can fly — it gives the airline the ability to fly to more far flung vacation destinations.

I'm not suggesting that Allegiant is about to add far flung destinations to Springfield's roster. I'm merely pointing out that the A319 broadens our horizons.